Premieres by Kolisch, Rose, and Kronos

Arnold Steinhardt, first violin of the internationally acclaimed Guarneri String Quartet, invites music listeners to the world of the string quartet repertoire and ensemble. Journey with him and interpretive analysis instructor Mia Chung through the history and features of quartet music, colored by stories of legendary quartets and insights from the stage.
This season's Curtis courses are sponsored by Linda Richardson in loving memory of her husband, Dr. Paul Richardson.

JR

Extremely interesting and informative course. Listening to a string quartet discuss and then demonstrate their playing was particularly enjoyable.

B

Sep 14, 2015

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I can't stop watching the lessons. Lovely demonstrations with a real quartet. So organized, the actual teachers respond to our questions.

从本节课中

The Explorers: Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Ives, Cage, and Reich

This program's quartets were written during the 20th century, a time of technological exploration and avant-garde expression. Visionary composers such as Schoenberg (Op. 10), Webern (Op. 5), Berg (Lyric Suite), Ives (No. 1), Cage (String Quartet in Four Parts), and Reich (Different Trains) used four string instruments in ways far different than Haydn. What did these composers dare to do, and how does one play works that present an entirely new and unexplored language?

教学方

Arnold Steinhardt

Performance Faculty

Dr. Mia Chung

Instructor of Interpretive Analysis

脚本

Welcome to segment five and our discussion about legendary quartet performers. Today's conversation involves a Kolisch quartet, the Rose quartet. Both quartets involved with the Second Viennese school, as well as the Kronos quartet, which performed many of the works of American modernists. Arnold, share with me what you know about the Kolisch quartet and its relationship with Arnold Schoenberg and then Anton Webern and Alban Berg. Well, Kolisch actually studied composition with Schoenberg, so it puts him in a tremendously advantageous position. And I think in connection with this about something the conductor Otto Klemperer said, he divided conductors into two types, and not necessarily one good and one bad, but he said there are the conductors who are also composers, not necessarily marvelous composers, but composers, and the conductors that were not. Because they thought differently about music. So his teacher Mahler thought differently about composition. So I can't help think that a performer, in this case Kolisch, had to think differently about, music being a composer himself. Right. Even performing 12 tone works or expressionistic atonal works, he must have heard and understood the construction and not just simply thought about executing notes and dynamics. Oh yes. Right. He knew the nuts and bolts. If he was a mechanic, you would have to say he knew how the engine ran. He knew all the different parts of it. And so here he was in this privileged position to be able to give the first performances of Schoenberg's third and fourth string quartets. And the premier performance of the lyric suite of Alban Berg. And I think he also, his quartet also performed Webern often. And they did this all by memory, which is an astonishing thing. Isn't that extraordinary? How do you think they went about doing that? Felix Khuner said to a friend of mine, he was one of the second violinists of the Kolisch quartet, he said "It wasn't complicated. Even my second violin part wasn't complicated. I just played the part that I didn't hear." So, from all the other voices. I think for some it's an arduous process to memorize, and for some it comes easily. So I think everybody had their own way of doing it. Right. As you often say, it was like mother's milk, right, having grown up in that central European culture and being nurtured in the music of Brahms and so on and so forth, the late German romantics, all the way up until the 20th century. So it was part of their bloodline, wasn't it? Yes, absolutely. And how about the Rose quartet? Well, the Rose quartet was extraordinary. Arnold Rose himself, who I believe was Romanian, he was born in Romania, came to Vienna and he was an active musician for well over a half a century. He was concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic for I think a good 50 years. And I mean he had the unusual privilege of premiering both Arnold Schoenberg's first and Second String Quartets, his quartet. But also works of Brahms. Brahms' clarinet quintet and one of his two viola quintets. So his life spanned these two extraordinary eras of music. And it's an irony, a sad irony that he was lauded, he was venerated to the point where he received awards. He even received his own carriage to come to concerts with, if you could believe it, such an idea for our modern world. And then the Nazis came in and he escaped with his life, of course. Interesting. And of course World War II was this cataclysmic event that displaced not only performers, but also displaced composers. So you see this sort of exodus of great geniuses like Arnold Schoenberg, for example, or Igor Stravinsky or Bela Bartok, many others. But also performers who came to the US and were absorbed into American musical culture and became performers in the Boston Symphony and other great organizations. So, tell us about their war experience and displacement. You went to one of the cultural centers and the cities of think of first off are New York, of course, but also oddly enough Los Angeles. Otto Klemperer fled with his life and didn't know what to do with himself, as a Jewish musician. And somebody said, "There's an opening as conductor for the Los Angeles Philharmonic" and he grabbed it. It was a way to save his life and earn money. And he arrived in Los Angeles, he said, "This is a cow town. There's no culture here." But because of the weather, because of Hollywood which offered employment, and the lifestyle for those who could choose the lifestyle, gradually a group of ĂŠmigrĂŠs formed, and so Los Angeles was transformed into a real cultural center. Right. So you have this convergence of European tradition, great geniuses of modern 20th century music coming to the United States and informing music making here in the US, which is quite a stunning thing, convergence of historical paths. And let's talk about the Kronos quartet which is the, of course, the renowned American string quartet known for their interpretation of contemporary works. In this case they have a very close allegiance to some of the minimalist composers like Terry Riley and Philip Glass and most certainly Steve Reich. Right. And you can't minimize the importance of all these quartets that decided to devote their lives to new music, the cutting edge of music, and Kronos would have to be at the head of that list. I think of them in a way as scientists, you know, who are willing to go into the laboratory and experiment with all kinds of different things and run the risks of explosions and disasters. Because they were dealing with new composers with new languages. And those new languages aren't easily understood. And so it takes a certain amount of time and effort to realize, I don't like this. I do like this. Or maybe something in between. And so they were the pioneers who set the stage for people who followed and who would be able to follow a tradition that string quartets like the Kronos established to begin with. Right. I mean I know that David Harrington, the founder of the quartet was inspired by George Crumb's "Black Angels." And he heard that piece and he was just like, "I'm going to start this quartet." And of course the quartet's been devoted to works from the contemporary era. And now the Kronos has also done crossover types of works. They've worked with artists who are familiar to popular culture. I remember them playing Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze" for example. So you see the convergence not only of contemporary composers with performers who love that music, but you also see them spilling over into other kinds of styles, modern styles that appeal to the general audience. Right. And it's such a healthy movement because certainly when I was a music student here there was a tendency to compartmentalize music. There was jazz. There was pop. There was classical music. And there was no bleed over. There was no borderline, border crossing, so to speak. It was, in a way, it was stifling. And I think it's a very healthy thing. I think composers have tended to draw, classical composers have tended to draw on occasion on popular idioms. Beethoven did it, Mozart did it, but it was still one thing or the other thing. Bartok drew on Hungarian folk music. But still there was this separation. And I think groups like the Kronos Quartet did a tremendous service, also in drawing in new audiences, as you mentioned. Amen to that. That's absolutely right. Well, it takes a lot of chutzpah, right, courage to do what they did. And you can see why they're so open even to dealing with technology as it is incorporated into acoustical playing, as is the case with Steve Reich's "Different Trains." I mean the Kronos, with all quartets are dealing with two violins, a viola and a cello that have a history that goes back almost 500 years. And it's kind of a miracle because a violin has not basically changed much in all that time. And so that's not changing, but that doesn't mean you can't add all the newest technology to it. And they've done that often. Well, what's exciting is that in this sort of focusing their attention on their attention on a very concentrated time period, perhaps let's say, you know, eight decades of the 20th century, and the works that emerged from that time period, it's exciting to know that a quartet can spend so much of its life and energy on that body of repertoire, much like the earlier quartets that focused say on the works on Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. So this tradition continues, Arnold. -Yes. It's an exciting one. -Yes, certainly. Thanks so much for joining me on this. My pleasure, Mia.